226 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



golden eagle. In Paramaribo the laws protect 

 the vulture, and the Spaniards of Angustura 

 never think of molesting him. In 1808, I saw the 

 vultures in that city as tame as domestic fowls; 

 a person who had never seen a vulture would 

 have taken them for turkeys. They are very use- 

 ful to the Spaniards ; and had it not been for 

 them, the refuse of the slaughter-houses in 

 Angustura would have caused an intolerable 

 nuisance. 



The common black, short, square-tailed vulture 

 is gregarious ; but the aura vulture is not so ; for, 

 though you may see fifteen or twenty of them 

 feeding on the dead vermin in a cane-field, after 

 the trash has been set fire to, still, if you have 

 paid attention to their arrival, you will have 

 observed that they came singly and retired singly, 

 and thus their being all together in the same 

 field was merely accidental, and caused by each 

 one smelling the effluvia as he was soaring through 

 the sky to look out for food. I have watched 

 twenty come into a cane-field; they arrived one 

 by one, and from different parts of the heavens. 

 Hence we may conclude, that though the other 

 species of vulture are gregarious, the aura vul- 

 ture is not. 



If you dissect a vulture that has just been feed- 

 ing on carrion, you must expect that your olfac- 

 tory nerves will be somewhat offended with the 

 rank effluvia from his craw; just as they would 

 be were you to dissect a citizen after the Lord 

 Mayor's dinner. If, on the contrary, the vulture 

 be empty at the time you commence the opera- 



